Did your mcps elementary school extend lunch and recess too?
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Anonymous
| The schools that only added 5 mins might have double lunch sessions - so they added 5 mins to each. |
Anonymous
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My son will now have 2 20-minute recess periods, instead of 1 30-minute period. I think the net result will be LESS outside/running/playing/free time for him, since the "line up, be quiet, no touching, now we wait" portions will have to be done twice. But, I have come to expect no more from MCPS.
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Anonymous
I'm sure you meant to say you have come to expect no more from your school - not MCPS. Your school was the one who decided to have 2 20 minute recesses. Other schools opted for a 40 minute recess. Other schools may be doing something completely different. |
Anonymous
Lunch/recess aides are one and the same. |
Anonymous
"5 minutes to each" is still 10 minutes total, right? |
Anonymous
| Our school has a 1 hour block for lunch and recess. |
Anonymous
According to our ES Principal in May (at the PTA meeting), the memo she got from BOE said the 10 minutes was only to be added to lunch. The school has 6 lunch/recess periods, so the struggle on how to add 10 minutes to lunch only (not recess) was becoming an issue. We already started at 11 AM for the first lunch group and 1:30 PM for the last lunch group. I said that the vote said "Lunch and Recess" but she again said the official direction from BOE was lunch only. I believe her. I also don't think BOE seriously considered how this 10 minutes would impact a school with more than 4 lunch/recess periods. (From watching the discussion, they clearly didn't take it into account. They were more concerned with a "no cost" option.) Anyway, we are done with ES now (hooray), and I haven't heard from anyone at the school to see what the lunch/recess periods will be. |
Anonymous
| Well for all the replies, it sounds like one thing is certain. MCPS is showing its typical colors of never knowing what is going on. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| Ah, thanks pp, our school has the same one hour lunch/recess block, and I was wondering where the extra time had gone, but I did see that the classroom teacher had a 10 minute break embedded in the schedule every day at 2:35. |
Anonymous
| But the teachers will not always go over that brain break, guaranteed. Our class was always late for lunch when I volunteered. I don't agree with the brain break unless the teacher is physically taking them outside to run around for 10 minutes which we all know will never happen |
Anonymous
I don't know where you got that from. As far as I can tell, the confusion is among DCUM posters, not MCPS. |
Anonymous
It's not the teacher who will do the brain break. Their union wouldn't allow that without paying them an addition ten minutes. It will be lunch/recess aides. |
Anonymous
| Yes the memo was very clear in the guidelines - it must be ten additional minutes each day in which MCEA members (teachers) cannot be responsible for overseeing. Most schools are extending lunch and/or recess and a few are doing the ten minute "brain break" option. Using paraeducators to give every teacher's class a ten-minute break (on top of covering hours of lunch/recess) is a great use of human resources when they could be pulling intervention groups instead. I really don't know what MCPS was thinking with this nightmare they created to appease a small group of parents. |
Anonymous
| Please check your school's lunch and recess schedules and follow up with the school if the guideline has not been implemented correctly. Each student's school day was extended by 10 minutes, so each of them should get additional 10 minutes of lunch/recess as per the guideline. |